


Chrysalis

by JBMcDragon



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Drama, Gen, No one told Clint Phil got shot!, this is a little more than 5 times but shutupokay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 19:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JBMcDragon/pseuds/JBMcDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six times Coulson came to visit Clint in the hospital, and the one time he didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chrysalis

**Title:** Chrysalis  
 **Author:** JBMcDragon  
 **Characters:** Clint Barton, Phil Coulson  
 **Rating:** PG (for swearing)  
 **Word Count:** 4100  
 **Disclaimer:** I do not own, nor am I making money off of, anything Avengers, Avengers related, or fic.  
 **Warnings:** Spoilers for the movie, reaction to character death.  
 **Status:** Complete

 **Summary:** Six times Coulson came to visit Clint in the hospital, and the one time he didn't.

**  
One

Clint opened his eyes, drifting in and out of misery. His stomach ached, hollow and sour. His muscles kept cramping. His skin hurt. Even his head throbbed lethargically to his heartbeat.

There was a man standing beside his bed.

Clint opened his eyes wider, suddenly awake. It wasn't a doctor, definitely wasn't a nurse. This guy was smiling faintly, standing with his feet apart, his hands clasped at ease in front of him. He was wearing a rumpled suit.

"Clint Barton," he said, and his voice was pleasantly mellow. "You're a hard man to pin down."

Clint pushed himself up in bed, wincing. "I'm sorry, have we met?" His voice sounded like it came through a meat grinder before breaking past his lips.  
  
"I'm Agent Coulson of the Strategic Hazard Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."

Clint's eyebrows rose slowly. "What?"

Coulson dipped his head, as if he knew what Clint's assessment of the name was and he was acknowledging it. "We're working on it. You were quite the sensation, back in the day." He pulled an old, battered and many times folded flier out of his pocket, tossing it toward Clint's stomach. It fluttered down, a broken-winged butterfly, garishly colored. "Have you kept in practice?"

Clint picked up the flier, already pretty sure what he'd see. His old circus troupe, with himself on the front: standing on the back of a cantering horse, shooting arrows at the apples on a clown's head. The clown was being carried off by three others.

"Sorry," he said, tossing the paper toward the suit -- Coulson. "I don't give private shows."

A humorless smile touched the corner of Coulson's mouth. "I represent SHIELD. We could use a man of your talents."

Clint let his gaze run up and down Coulson, purposely rude, just to make the man squirm. Coulson didn't squirm. "Sounds government. You're government?"

"Of a sort, yes."

"I'm not interested." He let his head fall back, breathing through another bout of nausea. "Besides, I'm sick. They don't know with what."

"With this." Coulson pulled out an empty vial. "They'll find it in your blood when the tests come back. It'll take about three days for the results, but by then you'll be dead."

He had Clint's attention now.

"Like I said." Coulson smiled. "You're a difficult man to pin down."

"So you're the bad guys," Clint murmured. "What, my brother contacted you? Listen, I'm not--"

"We're not the bad guys," Coulson interrupted. "And your brother is in Sing Sing." He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a small case. "This is the antidote."

"Blackmail?"

Coulson smiled again. He opened the case and pulled out the syringe, setting it on the little table by Clint's bed. "No. We're going to give it to you. Have it tested, make sure, then take it. We don't want you dead, Mr. Barton. We want you working for us."

"And why the hell would I work for you after you poisoned me?" he demanded.

"You have no family that you're in contact with. No job that you care about. You wander from city to city, always a carnie, never part of the carnival. You'll be twenty-five tomorrow, and what are you living for? You are without ties, Mr. Barton. Why wouldn't you work for us?"

"Because you _poisoned me_." This seemed pretty obvious.

Coulson gave an infinitesimal shrug. "Only a little. You wouldn't have heard me out, if I hadn't." He reached into his jacket pocket again, this time pulling out a card. He tucked it under the syringe. "I'll be in town for a few days. That number will be good for a week. If you're interested, call."

"If I'm not?" Clint snapped, burying fear under anger as Coulson turned and walked toward the door.

Coulson smiled over his shoulder. "Like I said. We're not the bad guys. Go live your life. But I think you'd enjoy working for SHIELD." He started to walk, then paused, glancing back one last time. "You're a good man, Clint Barton. You just need a little push."

**  
Two

Clint was high on painkillers when Coulson showed up. He opened his eyes and smiled blearily, too loopy for surprise even if he felt a flare of alarm. If his handler was there, maybe something was wrong. "Coulson. What are you doing here?"

"Agent Barton." Coulson looked around, pulled up a chair, fastidiously took off his trench coat and folded it before sitting down. "How does getting shot feel?"

A social call. This was a social call? The implications slipped away under the drugs. "I have never hurt so much in my life. I got trampled by an elephant once, you know."

Coulson gave a faint smile. "I know."

Clint leaned up, careful not to move his leg but wanting Coulson to be very clear about this. "Getting trampled by an elephant was not as bad as this."

"Let's not be dramatic. It was a calf," Coulson said.

Clint laughed and laid back. "It was."

Coulson picked up his briefcase, clicking it open. "You haven't done the paperwork for your last three missions, Barton. Care to explain why?"

Clint closed his eyes tight, throwing an arm over them for good measure. He didn't want to think about the way the letters swam every time he tried. The type was little and it was always confusing, full of dense paragraphs. He'd thought it would get easier, but after a year at SHIELD it hadn't. He'd _known_ there had to be a reason for Coulson to show up. "No."

Coulson was quiet for a little while. "All right," he said. "As your handler, I'm going to insist you do them."

"Fuuuuck," Clint breathed. He couldn't even run away. He was stuck in this bed.

"So, the first one. Bahrain. What happened in Bahrain?"

He slid a sidelong glance at Coulson, but Coulson was just looking at him expectantly. "Don't you need my name and numbers and all that?" he asked, half suspicious.

"I have that on file. I also have what the mission parameters were, and that you succeeded. What I don't have on file are the details. So why don't you give them to me?"

This wasn't so bad. He could deal with this. "It was a shitstorm."

"Yes, I got that from your repeated messages. 'Phil, if I get out of this alive I'm going to spit on your burgers for the rest of your life.' As many times as you repeated it, it's been burned into my memory." He paused a beat, then added, "I've given up burgers."

Clint glanced at Coulson sharply at the show of humor, then chuckled. "Those messages kept me entertained."

"Start with Davis. What happened with Davis?"

This wasn't what he'd expected. It wasn't a demand that he fix things. It was... _enjoyable_. Coulson asked him questions and the mission slowly came back. Looking at it this way, he could see where things had started to unravel. Where they'd gone wrong.

It took an hour, and when they were done the nurse was glaring at Coulson every time she walked by, but Coulson seemed content. He closed the file and tucked it back into his briefcase.

"Are you dyslexic, or just illiterate?" Coulson asked casually.

"What?" Clint shoved himself upward, winced as pain broke through the meds, and pinned Coulson with a glare of his own. "I'm not illiterate!"

"You don't exactly have a sterling school record," Coulson said. "It's a fair question. Dyslexic, then?"

Clint opened his mouth to light into Coulson, but hesitated. Coulson didn't look like he was condemning Clint, or calling him stupid, or anything else. He just looked expectant. Clint relaxed grudgingly. "I don't know. Maybe, from what I've heard. The letters move."

Coulson nodded. He clasped the briefcase with a little click and stood. "From now on, set aside an hour after your missions. If I can come to you, I will. If not, we'll debrief over a secure line."

"But--" Clint stopped himself just short of pointing out that none of the other field agents got this kind of treatment.

It didn't matter what he'd stopped himself from saying. Coulson, Clint was sure, was a mind reader. "It's okay," Coulson said lightly. "You do good work. It offsets the time." Then he smiled at the nurse, who was glowering at him again, and headed out of the room.

**  
Three

Clint sat in the corner, his arms bound into the straightjacket, listening to footsteps come and go outside his cell. Room. Whatever they wanted to call it, it was still a cell. This mission hadn't gone at all as planned. Or, wait, maybe it had gone as planned at first -- he'd infiltrated the mental hospital -- but no one had quite expected they were using such heavy drugs.

Clint rolled his head back, and the world swam around him. He was losing time. He didn't know how long he'd been in there. Sometimes he heard screams, but he didn't know if it was his own or someone else's. Sometimes they took him out and did things. Mostly, people peered at him from behind the black camera, where it crouched above the door like a squat, dead-eyed goblin.

He'd given up yelling. Or praying. Or reminding himself that Coulson would come for him, though he believed that to the cockles of his heart, whatever they were. He didn't do much other than drift, some part of his mind glad for the drugs that kept isolation from being the worst torture he could imagine. And after three years in SHIELD, he could imagine some pretty intense tortures.

He had an itch on his nose. He rolled, squashing his face against the wall, trying to rub it. It wouldn't go away. He kicked, driving himself farther against the wall. Scraping skin along concrete. He cried out wordlessly as the itch spread. Red smeared across the gray wall and he turned away, moving to a dry spot. Wet concrete wouldn't scratch right. It was too slippery.

The door opened. Clint didn't bother to turn; he was trying to itch. More red smeared along the wall.

"All right, that's enough," a familiar, calm voice said, and a figure in a suit knelt beside him. "Clint. Look at me."

He gasped, rolling his head to follow the order. "Coulson?"

"Yeah."

"My nose--"

"It's a mess. Try and relax, okay? We're getting you out of here. It's over. You did good."

Clint leaned forward, resting his head against Phil's jacket. _God damn_ , his nose itched. He started to rub again, against cloth this time. "What took you so long?" he mumbled, pressing harder.

"I hit traffic," Phil said. Then, "Okay, okay." He stroked the back of Clint's head. "Come on, let's get you unbuckled and into treatment. It'll be better soon."

**  
Four

"Brought you something."

Clint looked up, smiling as Coulson came in the door. "Hey! I thought you were in LA?"

"I was," Phil said, tossing a stack of celebrity magazines on Clint's lap. "I flew in when I heard you got poisoned. You need to stop letting people poison you, Barton."

"Yeah," Clint chuckled, pawing through the stack. "Oh, Coulson. You do love me. You even have the back issues! Wait -- This says Brad and Angelina. He and Jen broke up? Fuck, they were so pretty together." He shook his head sadly. None of the good things lasted.

"That happened two years ago. I still can't believe you enjoy those things."

"Shut the fuck up," Clint said good naturedly, all one long word. "I want to know what J-Lo's up to."

Phil pulled a chair close and sat down. "You look like you're in good spirits."

Clint grinned at his magazines. "I turned her, Phil. She's working with us now, which means I don't have to kill her. I consider that a win."

When it remained quiet, he looked up at Coulson. Coulson was looking back thoughtfully. "Don't get attached, Barton."

Clint looked away. "What? I don't have anyone. You pointed that out six years ago, right? I think I can get attached to _someone_."

"Not her," Phil said, all earnest seriousness. "I know you want family, but not her."

Clint didn't respond, remaining carefully neutral. He had family. A brother, somewhere, likely still robbing grocery stores and stealing cars.

If he wanted a family, he wanted one more like Coulson's, anyway.

Coulson continued, unaware of his thoughts. "She plays head games. It's what she does. You might think you're falling in love, but she isn't. She'll break your heart."

 _Love?_ "Oh, for the love of God, Coulson--" Clint started, exasperated, and was silenced by another voice in the doorway.

"He's right." She still had traces of a Russian accent, though she was working on losing them. "I'll break your heart."

Coulson glanced between them, then murmured something about getting coffee and left the room.

Clint smothered his grin, trying to play it smooth. Or at least smooth _er_. His heart beat a little faster, and he couldn't keep from noticing the graceful, lethal way she moved. "I'm not falling for you."

"I'm serious, Clint." She walked into the room, looking around idly. Except nothing she did was idle, ever. "I don't love people. You'll get close and when it's convenient, I'll use that. Whether or not I want to."

Clint's smile faltered. Then he rallied. "Well, that's good. Because the fact is, I didn't really want to get to know you anyway. I mean, if I get to know you, then I'll learn that you fart in your sleep and that's just not sexy."

She laughed softly, turning at last to look at him. "I drool, too."

"Well, there you go." Clint shook his head, mock-sad. "I'd much rather fall in love with you from a distance, where I can pretend like you're still perfect. You don't even shit in my mind."

Natasha smiled at him. Just for a moment, but it was there. He saved it away in a lockbox of memories. "Good," she said.

An agent appeared at the door. Coulson came in right behind him.

"That's my ride," Natasha said, nodding toward the other suited man. He clearly carried a firearm under his jacket. Stupid, around a women renown for being one of the best spies and assassins available. "Wish me luck."

Clint watched her go. Then he smiled at Coulson. "You've got to admit, she's pretty great."

"She'll be a good addition to the team," Phil said.

Clint grinned. That was about as good an endorsement as Coulson gave.

**  
Five

"I can't believe you've never had measles," Phil said, shaking his head, pushing Barton's wheelchair toward the door of the hospital

"I can't believe your nephew _gave_ me measles," Clint answered, trying not to itch. "Jesus, these are like monster measles, too."

"Doctor said you have a very minor case."

"Oh, shut up. No child should ever have to be conscious through this. The kind thing to do would be to knock them out when they started itching." But then, he had a thing about itching.

God, and he was scratching again.

"You'll scar if you don't knock that off," Phil said easily. The doors whooshed open around them. "There's our ride."

Clint stood, hobbling in his attempts to keep his jeans from touching his itchy legs. Even his leg hair tickled. And he'd burned himself turning the shower hot enough to cut the itch, which wasn't helping either. "I think the doctor lied. No way is this a mild case. I want a second opinion." He eased himself into the passenger seat of the car.

"Sure. My opinion is that this isn't nearly as bad as my nephew had it." Phil got in the driver's seat and turned over the engine.

"I'm never coming to another holiday with your family again."

Phil, the bastard, only smiled. It faded after a little while. "I have some good news." He flicked the turn signal on, checked over his shoulder, and changed lanes.

Clint resisted the urge to tell Phil to drive faster, he wanted to enjoy his retirement before dying in this car. He didn't. It would only make Phil slow down. "What's the good news?" he asked.

"I've been promoted."

Clint glanced over, surprised. "What? Really? Phil, that's great!"

A slight smile touched Phil's face. "Yeah. Pay raise, big house, everything. I won't be handling field agents anymore, though. Too much other work. They don't want you guys suffering for it."

The news wasn't unexpected. Coulson was one of the best, and he deserved a promotion and a raise. It didn't make it any less bittersweet.

"I'll miss you," Clint said.

Phil glanced toward him, then away. "We'll still see each other. You can come to my family for Christmas." He paused, a little smile at the corner of his mouth. "My niece might just give you chickenpox."

"Asshole," Clint laughed.

**  
Six

Clint had been in the hospital for eight days. Gut wounds were God-awful, and he was completely absorbed in self-pity. His handler, Burke, had come to visit him once. They'd had another argument about paperwork. There was a stack of it, now, by his bedside, but he refused to so much as open the files.

He was behind by seven missions. Burke said if he didn't complete his forms, they'd stop sending him out until he did, and dock his pay accordingly. But hell, fuck Burke.

Nat had come by, but left after a few hours. She said if she wanted to talk to someone who was that cranky, she'd go home to visit her grandmother in Russia.

Clint hadn't known she had _any_ living family.

He'd watched all the television he could stomach. Even the new gossip shows and reality TV series didn't hold any appeal for him. He was miserable.

Someone cleared their throat.

He glanced at his doorway, prepared to tell whoever it was to go fuck themselves. But he stopped, words unformed. "Phil?"

"Agent Romanoff says you've been in a bad mood since you got shot, and your new handler says you're refusing to do any paperwork. That true?"

Clint sulked. It was stupid, he knew. He could do the paperwork. He was dyslexic, not incompetent, and standing there looking at Phil in a crisp suit, he knew he was acting like a child. "You keep in touch with Nat, now?"

Phil gave a small shrug. "She's important to you, so she's important to me. We're the closest you and she have to family, so we all have to stick together. Are you refusing to do paperwork for your new handler?"

Phil never let a point go. Grudgingly, Clint muttered, "It takes too long."

"Right." Phil came into the room fully, closing the door behind him. "I think you're a little too experienced to be acting like a rookie."

Clint winced. "Yeah," he mumbled. After nine years in the field, he _knew_ he was being a fool. He just didn't like his new handler as much as he liked Phil. "I'll be better." He kept his head down, Phil's gaze like a lead weight.

Finally, it lifted. Phil took off his trench coat and folded it meticulously, then sat and picked up the first file off the table. "Madrid? What do we have going in Madrid?"

"Oh my God, that was a clusterfuck," Clint groaned. "Let's start with Greenland. At least that went smoothly."

"Okay." Phil put the file down, shuffled through the stack, and pulled free another. "Greenland. Ah, this looks pretty straightforward."

"Yeah," Clint agreed. "It was."

**  
Seven

It was simple stuff. A work up, CAT scans, MRIs, blood work, minor bandaging -- but mostly they wanted to see if there were any residual effects from Loki's mind control.

Clint went through it all with equanimity he'd learned over twelve years of working with SHIELD, knowing they'd be done when they were done, and not before.

He was sitting in a hospital bed, waiting on the next rash of tests and flipping channels, when Nat walked in.

She waved a couple of magazines, then tossed them on the bed.

Clint smiled up at her, turned the grainy television strapped to the corner off, and set the remote aside. "Hey," he said, glancing over the magazines. _Entertainment Weekly_ and _Celebrity_. Not bad. There was an article there about Suri Cruise, and he practically felt his hand inching toward it.

He could wait until Nat left.

She pulled up a chair and sat down, propping her heels up on the bed. "How're you holding up?"

"Fine. Peachy. I feel like a pincushion, but other than that..."

She smiled, as he'd known she would. She humored him like that.

He was still in love with her, he realized faintly, but Phil had been right. At least this way, he never had to know about her farting in her sleep. And Phil had been right about the rest of it, too: they were family. Dysfunctional, maybe, but family.

"What are you smiling about?" she asked, eyebrows rising.

"Nothing. Just--" He laughed, shook his head. "Nothing. How are things?" He sobered. "How badly did I screw up?"

She shrugged, but wouldn't look at him. "Clint, there's... something you should know."

His face grew rigid. He tried to stop it, tried to keep his mind working, tried not to assume the worst. But anything that started like that, with a lack of eye contact, meant something bad.

He looked toward the door. Phil hadn't come. Phil didn't come, not always anymore. But somehow, it stood out this time. His handler had called, had been the one to send him to the hospital, had met him here and debriefed him and made sure everything was in order and he wasn't about to crack.

But Phil wasn't here.

"Don't--" he began, knowing he couldn't stop the truth by stopping the words.

Nat didn't say anything. She pursed her lips and looked at her hands. Her nails were ragged; she'd been at them again.

"Who?" he asked finally, afraid he already knew.

"Coulson."

The word came out without his awareness. "No."

Nat remained silent.

"No," he said again. He closed his eyes. The silence weighed on him. The knowledge hovered there, seeping into his pores. He took a breath. "What happened?"

"Loki."

Pain opened up. "Should've shot the bastard when I could." Over any of the _days_ he'd been in Loki's presence, following orders like a good solider. He should stop asking questions now.

He couldn't. "When?"

"Clint..." She looked at him, pleading silently. _Enough. Leave it alone._

It made it worse. Clint stared out the window, forcing himself to blink back the burning sensation behind his eyes, to breathe through the ache in his chest. "When?" he asked again. Birds flew by outside. Two little ones wheeled after a single crow, driving it away.

Nat's words came out rehearsed. "When Loki broke out of the helicarrier."

What she didn't say was worse. "When _I broke him_ out of the helicarrier," Clint said quietly.

Nat didn't say anything.

A butterfly fluttered past the window, garishly colored. It looped through the breeze and carried on.

"He made me," Clint said, grief breaking into shock and back again. "He can't be-- I didn't mean--"

"Don't do this, Clint," Nat said quietly but firmly. "You couldn't have known. You couldn't have stopped it."

"No," he agreed in a whisper.

"He chose this life. Just like you did. Just like I did."

Phil had brought Clint into this life. Phil had shaped him and coddled him and carried him. Phil was the only family he had.

He couldn't do this right now. He took the memories and put them away in a box, turning the key. He would have to deal with it. But later.

Nat's hand slid between his locked ones, forcing them apart. She curled her fingers around his palm tightly. "He was a good man."

Clint nodded. Then he looked down at his hands. Callused, weather beaten, worn, entwined with smaller hands, delicate but no softer. "He fixed me. He gave me what I didn't have. He gave me a family."

"Yeah," Nat said, grip tightening. "I know."

\--End

Author notes: My [master fanfic list](http://jbmcdragon.livejournal.com/), and my [website for original novels](http://www.jbmcdonald.com). Because I might as well pimp, right? ;)

J  



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